Do you have everything for your startup’s success? Innovative idea- check. Excellent product- check. Fantastic team- check. It sounds like you have it all. But, there is one more thing. And that one missing piece can make or break the entire plan. That is marketing. Ask any business owner and they’ll tell you how crucial it is. You won’t be able to achieve success without a proper startup marketing strategy. At times, coming up with a good marketing strategy for your startup company can be quite intimidating. Don’t worry though, we are ready to tell you all about what you need. Through this post, we hope to introduce you to some of the most important market strategies that will help your business reach new heights. Have a look.
Essential Startup Marketing Strategy for Long-Term Success
It is really necessary to have a sound marketing plan in place if you want to boost the productivity of your business. This is why you need to focus thoroughly on the following marketing tactics:
Startup marketing strategy 1: Begin with a good strategic position
A strategic plan is the company’s guide or outing plan. Where you’re aimed is your vision and why you’re going on your mission or central goal. You shouldn’t start your startup marketing strategy randomly, placing ads in random places and immediately posting them to social media networks. This one requires a proper strategic plan.
You have to collect the right data and information to be satisfied in forming strategic decisions. You can easily collect necessary information through a web search on the research of large scale, market and industry trends. You can also obtain client and employee surveys or reviews and gain information about your competitors from secret customers or shoppers, trade shows, or industry reports. As you go on, you will get to figure out your business’s strengths, weaknesses, and threats. Such information can be incredibly helpful to enhance your startup and to prepare an appropriate strategic plan.
Marketing Strategy 2: Get on Social Media Platforms
As you know, startups are normally short on cash. You might not have a ton of money to spend like the big giant companies. In this case, you need a good strategy to work with the money you have. One of the best strategies is to leverage social media platforms. It is a great option because social media is globally popular, cheap, you can control the budget, and, of course, it works well.
You can make accounts on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Instagram and Facebook offer multiple options for advertising. For instance, you can create sponsored ads for your target audience. Likewise, you can have in-feed video ads too. Try it out on Instagram too. Over there you can promote using stories or feed ads.
Keep the costs in mind
Earlier, we mentioned that social media is cheaper, which is a great advantage for a startup company. However, you have to check your budget plan before going overboard with social media promotions. Make sure to balance benefits and expenses. According to WordStream, the average cost per click for Facebook is $1.72, and the cost per 1000 impressions is $9.08.
Similarly, the average cost per click for Instagram is $1.28 and the cost per 1000 impressions is $6.70. So it is important to keep those costs in mind when you are promoting. We suggest finding a perfect balance by catering to both of these platforms. That way, you are not risking all your money on just one social media platform. You don’t want to risk all your eggs in one basket, right?
YouTube Is a game-changer
You cannot undermine the influence of YouTube. It is the second most visited website, and your business will gain instant exposure there if proper procedures are followed for improving user engagement, such as view counts, etc. So, how can you promote your business on YouTube? Well, you can make your own channel there and upload some interesting content to it. Also, remember that simply uploading and leaving it there would not work, as it won’t be automatically indexed among the top results by the search engines or even in the YouTube search itself. So, you will have to get some assistance from social media marketing experts. For example, you can create ‘How To’ videos or tutorials. It will give you credibility and connect you with the audience more. Plus, it is a way to address your customers’ questions by providing answers.
Startup marketing strategy 3: Email Marketing
Another method is to use email marketing. It is a great way to get in touch with your target audience. Take steps to capture the email addresses of your clientele at any possible touch point, including your official website. Speaking of the website, take measures to make your website have a professional look. It is especially important if you are an e-commerce business. We suggest you get it designed by an e-commerce web design company.
You can also create a popup for subscription on the website and entice visitors to subscribe. It would be far easier for you to send emails once you build a database. For instance, you can inform them about discounts, promotions, or news about your business.
When to start email marketing?
When we say email marketing is effective, we mean it. Can you believe that for every $1 that you spend on email marketing, you get $38 in return? That’s right. Plus, email marketing is even more effective than Facebook ads. The reason is that most of the emails that you send are delivered to the customer’s inbox. On the other hand, only some of your target audience get to see the Facebook ads. It is more effective than Twitter as well.
It has been found that an email campaign has a 3% average click-through rate. On the other hand, a tweet has only a 0.5% average click-through rate. The stats speak for themselves. So comparatively, you are 6 times more likely to get a client to click on the email than with Twitter. Email marketing is powerful, and you should make email marketing a big part of your digital strategy.
Startup marketing strategy 4: Figure out your target audience
You may have a superb marketing plan, product, or service. However, that alone will not be enough. There’s more to the picture. The biggest part is played by none other than your customers. A solid clientele is necessary to enhance your small business.
But who are your customers? Determining your target audience is crucial. Here are a few suggestions to help you with that:
Recognize the basic demographics of your target audience. This includes information like their gender, age group, and location. Analyze their personalities or shopping behavior which allows your business to be more relatable to their interests and needs.
Such studies will help you to make your brand more customer-friendly.
You will be able to refine your specific audience and identify their needs so your services can satisfy them.
Marketing strategy 5: Start a PR campaign
To take things to the next level, start a PR campaign for your business. It can definitely give you effective and quick results. That is, if you take the right actions, of course. So, if you want to perfect your PR campaign, you should know your target audience well. Your PR campaign should help you achieve your goals. So, before launching your campaign, define the specific objectives you want to achieve. For example, your goal could be to build awareness about your product or service or to improve your brand image.
Now that you have set the goals, you can launch your PR campaign. It would be best to work with small publications at this stage. You don’t have to target big publications for the first time. You can try it out if you have a worthwhile announcement for a large audience. Start small with guest articles, blogs, or even social media influencers. Suppose you have a very interesting and innovative product. In that case, you could send in your pitches to journalists to cover your story on the product.
Wrapping Up
There you have it! Now you know the importance of having a proper marketing strategy. Clearly, marketing is crucial for your startup. However, marketing just for the sake of it is not going to be enough. It should be properly executed.
Through this post, you have got to learn some of the most effective marketing strategies for startups. Of course, you can choose any or all of these strategies to grow your business. By incorporating them, you will surely reach out to new customers and generate more sales.